Dublin Fringe Festival: The Epic, Definitive Review Fourteen shows, sixteen days.

I always preempt the experience of attending the Dublin Fringe Festival by making a commitment to myself to maintain a level of contrived ignorance. It’s a protective measure to preserve an element of the unknown that I feel parallels the entire premise of The Fringe – a festival designed to promote the work of alternative theatre companies for a lower cost. Declining leaflets and averting eyes from reviews, it feels like mark of respect. Like opting into a secret social contract. A snub to the etiquette standardised by professional theatre.

This year I raised my game and fully embraced the chaos. Behold, a montage of everything I saw – 14 shows over 16 days.

Papini (Smock Alley Theatre)

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Can theatre be sci-fi? If so, this was certainly the case with Papini. The setting was clinical and sanitised, embellished with a futuristic and galactic flair. This triggered imagery from The Man Who Fell to Earth for me, but that may be a response to the eerie bald man who made spontaneous appearances as a kind of ghost of the past, like Ziggy Stardust’s phantom.

The play mainly grapples with self-destructive behaviours: are they a reflexive coping mechanism or a planned procedure? Does that make them more or less real?

The play opens with a childhood memory that is periodically revisited, but is mostly abandoned and as the present day takes over.  Several characters share a living space, one of whom is experimenting with destructive behaviour – a consequence of “it”. “It” becomes a characterisation used as a blanket-term for any kind of existential complex.

The play was universal in subject matter, exploring feelings of dislocation in the adult world, and regret that retrospectively taints the purity of childhood. The acting was mostly impressive, though some cast members lacked authenticity. I commend the special effects: low-budget aside, the wounds and blood were realistic to the point that my friend expressed shock that they would actually allow actors to self-harm on stage. They managed to evoke a feeling of déjà vu among the audience by screening the experience of entering the venue on a projector. I felt transcendent.

The play mainly grapples with self-destructive behaviours: are they a reflexive coping mechanism or a planned procedure? Does that make them more or less real? A response to popular culture, while certain behaviours have become less stigmatised, they’ve also become more publicised. Even though the execution of these tensions played out on stage sometimes lacked sophistication, on the whole it was a brave play that didn’t shy away from the big questions; on perversity, and the potential to warp information intended to enlighten. It captured the major conflict of ascribing meaning to life by successfully obscuring the spectrum of total dilution – passivity and nullity – and erratic passion – always hungry, never satisfied.

The Half of It (Hidden Location)

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A one-woman play. And well, what a woman. Some 15 audience members were guided one by one up a set of stairs, the creak of the stairs and clatter of footsteps audible to those waiting. Low and behold an enclosed attic: tightly packed with a stale smell wafting about the room. Props were minimal; bed, telephone, table and chair. A self-contained living space with a certain dimness of light that gave the impression that a lifetime could be spent there in humming, unmoving transition. And that seemed to be the case.

A deeply realistic manic vigilance sustained throughout, Karen Cogan was a totally absorbing presence that garnered every audience member’s unwavering attention.

Karen Cogan is stuck in limbo, unable to reconcile a traumatic event from her past. We’re offered soundbites of a story – charged with neurotic paranoia and intermittent with erratic thought spirals that lack coherency. We struggle to paint a clear picture of the relationship that has defined her youth. Linearity aside, Cogan renders the claminess of intimacy palpable not only through the stuffy space, but in her gripping account of the duo in their prime. She grapples with the repercussions of co-dependency; alienation from the self, depersonalisation, and identity complexes. A deeply realistic manic vigilance sustained throughout, Karen Cogan was a totally absorbing presence that garnered every audience member’s unwavering attention. This play tackles the gritty, dissecting the layers of friendship to the most disgusting detail. Never to shock or disturb, but merely to reflect their reality of love. The effect is authenticity, grounding the play in the realistic as opposed to the aesthetic. Nothing surpasses Karen Cogan’s sheer talent however, one to keep an eye out for in the future.

The Egg is a Lonely Hunter (Project Arts Centre)

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A one-woman show. Minimalist, yet rich and evocative – memories enlivened through a single voice. A comical string of anecdotes from an animated actress with tremendous vocal control. Laugh-out-loud funny, with moments of real poignancy and gravity.

The Friday Night Effect (Smock Alley Theatre)

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It ended up being like one of those flowchart quizzes in magazines that tell you whether you’re more a Kendall or a Kylie (with the exception that no matter how you answer the questions, you will end up a Kendall).

The play describes itself as “interactive,” as “the fate of the characters will be in the hands of the audience.” A kind of half-truth. While one does in fact alter the course of events, this doesn’t determine the ultimate outcome of the play – we are already told in the prologue of one of the main character’s imminent death. The play stops at crucial moments and asks the audience if they would choose to do either x or y in the given situation. So it ended up being like one of those flowchart quizzes in magazines that tell you whether you’re more a Kendall or a Kylie (with the exception that no matter how you answer the questions, you will end up a Kendall).

While the actors were quite inexperienced and the script lacked substance, it was definitely a unique idea. There was a thrill involved in the fourth wall being totally shattered, and then furthermore handing us over what felt like the key to the next round. The cast was energetic, with glimpses of great ability shining through. The play itself was unspectacular and slightly sloppy, but I’d be interested to see the development of this young company. I’m by no means writing them off.

Raven Eyed (Hidden Location)

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Loosysmokes is a theatre company that specialises in acrobatics but “is not bound by the traditional trapping of art, circus or performance.” Indeed, they proved their brazen approach to the theatrical experience by meeting the audience at Point Village LUAS Stop, and guiding us to a nearby barn. It did in fact set the tone: a dark and rainy night, and on the walk over I chatted to an audience member who was on a solo trip from New York, in Dublin in pursuit of “a transformative experience.”

“I wish things had gotten weirder though. I was ready for things to get weird.”

Creepy and evocative, costume and setting echoing that of Tim Burton or Sweeney Todd. A sensuous experience; strobe lighting, spooky soundtrack, and glass fragments crushed by dancers’ nimble feet. My main criticism? While they managed to create an atmosphere of rapt suspense – quite the feat in theatre – the play never reached its full potential: there was no climax. I felt strangely reverent stepping out into the darkness once the lights went out. But weirdly, I was longing for the feeling of being totally unhinged – the feeling I’d been most expecting. In my own words, “I wish things had gotten weirder though. I was ready for things to get weird.”

When the show ended I asked the New Yorker whether or not the experience was indeed transformative. She agreed that it was.

Everything Not Saved  (Project Arts Centre)

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I left the performance beaming with that elusive glow that I like to call “art-buzz”.

My Fringe favourite. Elegant and precise, yet magnetic. Charismatic characters bubbling with Wildean wit, zinging each other from start to finish. A cultural cauldron – including an elaborate and hilarious motif based on Rasputin as a historical emblem. Fresh and modern with thought-provoking content. On relationships, preservation, and the fallibility of memory. Razor-sharp but never overbearing. I left the performance beaming with that elusive glow that I like to call “art-buzz”. A rare and unique feeling, that theatre high. A must-see.

Aon mhac tíre, no roinnt mic tíre (Project Arts Centre)

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I bought a ticket because of the title – I thought it’d be as Gaeilge. I was mostly incorrect. The play opens with an Irishman and an American man, the latter mistranslating the Irish. The atmosphere is cordial and teasing. The play then cuts to black, and the men proceed to plow a field using glass bottles which they stamp into shards of glass. It felt agricultural: a process of laying the land and setting the scene. It aligned with the play at large because the script was mostly based on anthropological development, so they acted as kind of first farmers. Each man then gave 20-minute speech in a playpen filled with shards of glass. History was used as a conduit for ideas; martyrs, cultural symbolism and national emblems. Language was coarse from start to finish without alleviation, so not a play for the fainthearted. Intentionally blinding light illuminates at random intervals to add the surrealistic experience.

With experimental theatre it’s very subjective territory, boiling down to a simple choice: I didn’t buy it.

With experimental theatre it’s very subjective territory, boiling down to a simple choice: I didn’t buy it. I validate this by expressing my disinterest. I was unmoved; I found that lighting more offensive than stimulating. I did not feel the events of the past implying or integrating themselves in our present. It was the Emperor’s New Clothes if I’ve ever experienced it: lots of crunching glass, blinding light, broken Irish, flashy descriptions, and no context. Discordant ideas of time and place that I could not knit together and materialise even the vaguest glimmers of harmonious artistic insight. One of my less loved.

The Shitstorm (Abbey Theatre)

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The title is apt. A play based on The Tempest, but unlike the original Shakespearean approach, or Césaire’s more political Une Tempête, The Shitstorm is first and foremost a comedy.

Chaotic, but never clumsy.

A farcical West Kerry tale armed with an exceptional and well-synchronised cast. A well-written and original script brimming with electric language; hodge-podge and disordered, but always unified. Chaotic, but never clumsy. A mark of talented writing – any hidden technicalities I tried to fine-comb remained discreet and indiscernible. Like magic, words fashioned themselves from characters’ mouths with what seemed like total fluidity and supernatural flair, charged with Beckettian momentum and zest. The curtain closed after a musical number by the cast – who by this stage had spontaneously reformed as a rockband – and my friend and I appeared to be impressed:

“I have no idea what just happened.”

“Me neither.”

“I liked it though, it was zesty.”

“Yeah, I was into it.”

FFFFFFFMILK (Smock Alley Theatre)

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This was a ticket that I had blindly booked the morning of, barely making note of the name. I rationalised this on the grounds of aligning with the-haphazard-fringe-experience. And haphazard it was.

The play inverts the development of commercialised stand-up in place of a modern form of theatre known as “clowning.” A one-man show starring Paul Currie, who was closer to court jester than comedian. It’s a less passive approach to performative comedy, demanding the consistent attention of the audience. An interactive and somewhat intrusive (but never mean-spirited) level of audience-participation was involved. After several minutes of introductory clowning – which I found silly and noisy – he digressed and discussed suffering from severe depression as a teenager, proclaiming, “And now you may take me more seriously as an artist.” It was by the way, but the tone of the show shifted. Either that or – reluctant as I am to acknowledge the likelihood – I simply started to think about the play differently. So by the time he asked us to stand up and sing Saturday Night Fever’s More Than A Woman entirely through meowing while holding our palms to our heads as kitten ears, I was fully into it.

During a scene in which Currie reads a copy of Where’s Wally while holding a look of exaggerated introspection, I found myself nodding along, “Yes, of course! I mean, Where is Wally? Where is he?”

From then on I found myself experiencing the show from a series of fluctuating and conflicting angles, at one stage resisting analysis so as to honour slapstick comedy’s lack of presumptuousness. “Base reaction. It’s just funny! Face value, that was the artistic intent.” At other times, I was contemplative and cerebral, recontextualising the wacky by readily approving the most tenuous of symbolic theories. During a scene in which Currie reads a copy of Where’s Wally while holding a look of exaggerated introspection, I found myself nodding along, “Yes, of course! I mean, Where is Wally? Where is he?” I could apply philosophical dimensions to the most superficially meaningless scenes.

As the play ended, and I stood on stage dancing with an elderly man to a meowed chorus of More Than a Woman, I felt bubbly and elated. The show had lifted me from early evening slump, to a full embracement of the absurdity being thrown my way. The absurdity of life.

Walk For Me (Bewleys Café Theatre)

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A one-woman show that follows the span of her life from early teens to young adulthood. The catch?

A modern play that tackles dislocation in stimulating social settings, and isolation in company.

The snippets into which we have access are uniquely from her nightlife. From Dublin’s preteen disco-circuit – say hello to a funhouse of references from your Wezz-days – to New York’s underground club scene, where shady characters become father figures in the aftermath of hopelessness and desperation. A modern play that tackles dislocation in stimulating social settings, and isolation in company. At times very ridiculous, at others quite serious. The play lacked substance for me – I wasn’t overcome with a sense of hitting home like I had expected. But it features dance, strobe lighting, and a DJ. It is well-acted and current. So if that’s up your street, it’s the play for you.

It’s getting harder and harder for me (Smock Alley Theatre)

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Three omens and the monotony of daily life. Set in contemporary Belfast, the play explores the struggles of the three at odds with self-harm, consumer-culture, diet-culture etc. The main emphasis is on self-medication – from the slyly self-regulating to stifling addiction. The content gains gravity as the play progresses and becomes very raw during its final moments, grinding personhood down to its very kernel. Spirited and sincere, and I dare say I caught a glimpse of the void.

Neon Western (Samuel Beckett Theatre)

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The play opens mid-action and outdoors as two of the leads participate in a duel, after which we were guided indoors. The “seating” area? A dancefloor – an ambiguous space on which many actors stood as bystanders, the first attempt to bridge the gap between audience and performance.

At another charged moment someone fainted near the corner of the room, and until first aid came out to help her I was unaware that this was off-script.

The play is more spectacle than story. It’s about group power-dynamics in its constant flux. Whether central or periphery, one is an actor in perpetuating a precarious social structure by association alone. The audience tries to understand the chaos of the club night unfolding around them by means of monitoring who holds the cards.

The highlight was when the play momentarily stopped and the audience were each given a free watermelon cocktail. There was a deflation in tension despite the heightened atmosphere. Friends who had arrived together chatted amongst themselves and all of a sudden, it was as if we were at an unlikely social gathering where we all knew the host. There were similar moments in the play where you could not ascertain whether your experience was a part of the play, or just a virtual experience happening alongside it. At another charged moment someone fainted near the corner of the room, and until first aid came out to help her I was unaware that this was off-script. Thematically speaking, it felt like it was meant to be – amalgamating the real and the unreal.

I enjoyed the play for its happy accidents, but I wouldn’t rate it highly as a piece. In the end, the omnipotent ‘Preacher’ loses power. The play has a semi-circular narrative, beginning with a duel and closing with a fight to the dead. Who has gained the upperhand? There is ultimately no winner or loser, and I think that may have been the point.

Soldier Still (Project Arts Centre)

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A show comprised of dance and movement exploring themes of war – the body used to trace the degeneration of the human spirit. Despite the opening voiceover that was chilling enough to send my mind on a spiral of Siegfried Sassoon poems, I didn’t enjoy it. Although there was a good sense of equilibrium among the dancers and it embodied corruption and intra-army enmity quite well, the blatant shortcoming was the movement itself: it lacked grace and skill.

The blatant shortcoming was the movement itself: it lacked grace and skill.

One scene was rather powerful – in the aftermath of being ostracized by her military allies, the actress enters into a kind of jerking-frenzy. As if possessed by dance, she strips herself of her flesh-coloured bodysuit and for the rest of the play it hangs ominously in the background, like the shell of her humanity. On the whole however, it was disappointing. A play that was favoured by critics, but not by me.

Take off Your Cornflakes (Bewleys Café Theatre)

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“Ahh! Sister Assumpta!” The exclamatory phrase reverberated in my head when Rose Henderson was illuminated under the spotlight, but that’s just by the way. A story based on a marital relationship under the strain of the husband’s development of Alzheimer’s, a revolving setting of the domestic space’s many faces. Spoken in a familiar, quintessentially Irish turn-of-phrase – never short on puns and allusions that resonate with us uniquely as Éireannaigh. It was quite the crowd-pleaser, and the audience bellowed in conspiratorial laughter at every twist in dialogue. You’ll find your giggles functioning more often as an expression of recognition than of amusement. One for the relatives disconcerted by anything too avant-garde, but definitely not confined to that bracket.

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